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So yesterday I posted about an 'outing' of an area Courage chapter by John Townsend in a local fag-rag, Lavender - it's a magazine devoted to GLBT news, gossip, and ads. My Dr.'s office always has a stack of current issues scattered about, but since I haven't been there for a year, I haven't seen a copy until yesterday. After a friend sent me a link to their website, I was able to read their coverage of the Roman Catholic support group Courage, as well as an outing of a local Lutheran minister - who attended Courage meetings in his efforts to walk the straight and narrow.
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Expose.
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There are lots of misunderstandings about Courage Apostolate, and naturally so. It's a bit counter-cultural. The meetings are conducted privately - some say secretly - but that's only to protect the identity of persons not willing to go public about such personal matters of conscience. Such people are often mocked as closeted by gay activists who really ought to be more sympathetic to their struggle, yet are not. Aside from preserving anonymity, another reason for a certain level of 'security' is to protect members from protesters who would otherwise disrupt regular meetings, annual conferences, and 'out' participants. Unfortunately, Lavender did not respect these boundaries when it published the expose which did exactly that.
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Transparent closet.
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No matter how 'out of the closet' gay folk think they are - they remain bound by the same dynamic they always had been - they are 'gay'. They still self-segregate. In reducing their identity to a sexual tendency; their sexual attraction has become the defining aspect of their existence, which ultimately restricts, confines and limits one's freedom of spirit. In a sense, their 'closet' remains, so long as they define themselves as 'gay' - 'coming out' simply made the closet walls more transparent. Nevertheless they will always be 'other', regardless how many legal rights are granted them in the short term. In our day and age, legal rights are no longer a guarantee.
Terry--probably the best thing to do would be what the "Courage" men do, ignore the magazine sitting in the doctor's waiting room, rather than giving into temptation by picking it up and reading it. I did enjoy the article on Pastor Tom though. ;-)
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In reducing their identity to a sexual tendency; their sexual attraction has become the defining aspect of their existence, which ultimately restricts, confines and limits one's freedom of spirit.
ReplyDeleteExactly! I will never, ever understand someone who defines themselves by how they have sex. That is just plain weird.
Is that his name? I didn't pay attention to what his name was. I'm sure he is mortified.
ReplyDeleteThis "Lavendar" article is just nasty...
ReplyDeletewho know how much of it is true?
Perception, as I have found out through hard experience, is another thing altogether;
to print the comments made during a seemingly "anonymous" and "confidential" meeting is horrid.
This is the m.o. of the "gay agenda"...absolutely "harpoon" anybody who gets in your way (and the psychological makeup of someone who is out to kill whomever is in their way)...it's the typical thing here. Sorry if I'm sounding "homophobic"...but a glance within might just give some credence to this. Prayers.
There's a lot of psycho around; the gay agenda is just one of them...
+JMJ+
ReplyDeleteI remember the first time the self-segregation became apparent to me. It was very late on a Saturday night (which technically made it Sunday morning) when I got a message from my sister, who was drunk at a party and needed me to pick her up. So I got the directions, drove on over, rang the doorbell, was let in . . . and for the first time in my life, stood in the middle of a room full of women as the only heterosexual one there.
Now, my family, my friends and I are pretty "liberal" about this. (I use that in the non-political way.) When I was growing up in a big extended family, my lesbian aunt had her long-term partner move in with us, and that partner ended up being my Confirmation sponsor. My mother had a job in retail for years; nearly all her male colleagues were gay. One of my brothers' classmates has "two daddies" and he is my younger brother's best friend. And obviously, I have a lesbian sister. So nobody I know would bar someone from a reunion or party or simple friendship just because he or she is homosexual. And yet for years I thought that the reason gays weren't fully accepted by society was that "straights" kept rejecting them.
And then I picked my sister up from that party, where I recognised a couple of her old friends, and realised that it's not gays who aren't welcome in straight society (which is, let's face it, mainstream society, which can absorb extremes and has room for everyone), but the other way around.
And while my sister was getting ready, another woman came on to me in a way that would have earned her a kick in the nuts if she had been a man. But since she wasn't a man, I wasn't sure what an acceptable response from me would have been. When someone refuses to be either a lady or a gentleman, and can play the discrimination card when she is called out for being a boor, well, it's not assimilation that that person wants.
I don't think homosexuals want to be mainstream as much as they want us to get into their closets with them.
Beams and specks.
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